


Of Revenge and Crushes

by spaceandshit



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, Humanstuck, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-20 03:45:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3635379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceandshit/pseuds/spaceandshit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave Strider can hold a grudge. Seriously, it happened in the first grade and he still feels the need for revenge. It was ten years ago. Please, stop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Warning and A Conversation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CosmicScalemate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosmicScalemate/gifts).



With a little over a hundred students in each graduating class, Crocker High School was small. In such a small highschool, news traveled fast, so when a new junior showed up on October 8th, it only took till third period for Karkat Vantas to hear about it. Not that he had been told directly; he had simply overheard a classmate gossiping with her friend. By lunchtime, half the junior class was brimming with anticipation at seeing the newest shithead to join this ass fuckery of a school.

Karkat could tell when New Kid entered the cafeteria. There was a dip in the white noise of chatter as people collectively held their breath. "Where's he going to sit?" _Doesn't matter. God, this town was boring._ He didn't even glance up. He'd probably have an afternoon class with New Kid, so what was the point? Karkat continued his book and sandwich without interruption.

That is to say, until he heard a fake cough from behind him. Karkat turned around and knew instantly that New Kid was an asshole. First off, he was wearing reflective aviator sunglasses. Crocker didn't have a strict dress code, but seriously? This was worse than Captor. Then, there was the hair, it was dyed platinum blond and practically screaming "Look at me! I'm a douche!" And, of course, there was the big fake smile. Karkat wondered what reason New Kid had for hating him already, because that was not a smile you showed people you intended to befriend.

"Hi. Are you Karkat Vantas?" There was a spiteful cheeriness to the question.

Suspicious nod. Karkat normally didn't have a reputation, at least not one he was aware of. This was odd.

"Yeah, I'm Dave Strider, you might remember me from first grade. I'm just here to inform you that I still remember the apple juice incident and you are most certainly going to die. Have a nice day."

_Oh shit._ Karkat had almost forgotten of Dave Strider. He was too in shock to reply as Dave walked away to go eat lunch with god knows who. Could this be Dave? Karkat tried to reconstruct the face of the seven year old he remembered. The shades and hair made it difficult to compare the two. This Dave had about the same skin tone as the one Karkat had known, maybe a little bit lighter. And those lips, from what little he could remember, Karkat could imagine Dave growing to have lips like those; thin and wide. If this was Dave Strider and not some practical joke though, a question still remained: Why would the Striders move back to Bale Lake.

Karkat did not immediately notice when Sollux sat down across from him. Rather, he was startled out of his thoughts when his friend spoke a simple, commanding, "No."

"What?"

"KK, do you love yourself?" Sollux shook his head, "Wait don't answer that. We all know you're a miserable, tortured, soul."

"Fuck you."

"Look, KK, tell your kokoro to go fuck itself." Sollux's face wrinkled in disgust, "I can not believe I just allowed that to be said."

"You asshat, just shut up. Anyways it's not that." The two had been best friends forever, there had been so many arranged playdates when they were little it was kind of inevitable. This did not change the fact that they found each other incredibly annoying much of the time.

"Yeah, right." 

Just then, Terezi and Kanaya got out the lunch line and joined them at the table. Friends. People who are tolerable to each other. The "I have weird as fuck name" gang. That was them.

"So did you guys see the new kid yet?" Terezi was setting up a joke and Karkat could tell.

"Not yet, how about you?" _Really Sollux?_  

"Ha. Ha. Very funny. No, I have not seen anyone today. Asshole." She was grinning from ear to ear at the fact someone had amused her and taken the bait.

"Oh, stop it with the dumb blind jokes."

"Did you just call me dumb?"

Okay, this should probably be stopped. "I've seen him."

"As did I. It appears I shall be sharing History with him."

"Nice. I have fourth period with him. He's pretty funny."

"That's not quite how I'd describe him, but I suppose so. I don't understand, though, why are we referring to him as 'the new kid' even though he's lived in this town before?" _Kanaya, did you really have to inform the others of this?_

"Wait, someone moved back? Who?" 

"His name's Dave. Sollux, please don't tell me you've memorized the name of everyone who's ever moved away, because, while I can unfortunately imagine you doing this, it's kind of obsessive."

"No, I haven't. But, the list isn't that long and KK knows most of it. He has bad luck with friends."

"Sollux if you don't shut up I will stuff the rest of this sandwich up your ear."

"Yeah, right. Now how many Dave's have moved away?" He looked at Karkat expectantly and Karkat rolled his eyes.

"Two. 1st and 3rd grade."

"Do you know their last names?"

"I think they were Mills and Strider."

Terezi interrupted, "Isn't Strider the name of the kid you got suspended with?"

"How do you even remember that?"

"Suspending first graders isn't exactly a common occurrence, Karkat. Also I talked to Dave, like, less than an hour ago."

Sollux raised an eyebrow. That fucking eyebrow was arched in a perfect curve that exaggeratingly expressed his intrigue. Karkat hated that eyebrow. That eyebrow was making assumptions.

"Wow, Sollux, you might wish to consider telling your left eyebrow to calm down," Kanaya commented.

"This eyebrow will calm down once KK explains what's going on."

"There's nothing to explain, and even if there was, I don't have to tell you damn thing."

Terezi put a hand on his shoulder. "Karkat, you realize that's basically saying that we can assume all of our assumptions are true." 

"No, it's not!"

"Really? Okay, Sollux help me fill in the blanks. Karkat talked to Dave recently sometime before Kanaya and I sat down here, but it was not during any morning classes."

"It would have been before I sat down, too. Also when I sat down, he was staring off into space with the 'I'm thinking about how hot someone is. I will most definitely develop a crush on this person.' face he gets."

"Alright, so Dave and Karkat talked, and considering their history and Dave's attitude earlier, it was not a friendly conversation. Now Karkat is in the early stages of a crush and is acting like he hates Dave to defend the fact that he is constantly thinking about Dave."

"What the fuck? That's not what's going on at all." 

“Karkat, we’ve been friends for as long as I can remember. That is exactly how you develop a crush,” Kanaya confirmed.

_Look, just because that's what I did with Terezi and John...and Jade...okay, maybe she has a point._ His friends still had no right to assume that this was what was going on. Because it wasn't. He hadn't even said anything about Dave yet, not really. He didn't have any particular feeling in regards to Dave. They hadn't really talked and it had only been for short bit. Karkat was only slightly worried and confused. That was all. He rolled his eyes and scowled. "Fuck you all. Think what you like, but I don't care for him either way."

 

 


	2. Cats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn't actually davekat, it's just neprezi. Davekat can fucking wait.

The next day, Karkat ran to his locker to find a sight he had suspected he'd find. It was absolutely vandalized with various words and images depicted all over. Dave Strider 'happened' to walk by at this time and Karkat yelled out to him, "This is school property, you prick!" Opening the locker, he discovered that the same thing had happened to most, if not all, of his supplies. Karkat supposed it was a good thing he had a fuckton of homework last night, for it appeared this might have saved his textbooks. It would have been a pain in the ass to pay the replacement fee for those. Karkat made a mental note to try and buy a lock. Karkat exchanged what he had in his bag for what he needed for his Lit class and muttered curses and threats in regards to Dave. He could understand why Dave hated him, but Karkat had been a dumb kid.

At least it was Friday, Nepeta would be coming over this weekend. The Leijons had had to move in the fourth grade, but they had only moved about forty-five minutes away. Like Sollux and Kanaya, Nepeta's mom was close friends with Karkat's dad. The four had many a playdate and sleepover when they were little and when Sollux met and introduced them to Terezi in kindergarten their little group was complete. On most weekends and during summer, Nepeta stayed with one of them.

The day itself passed by fairly uneventfully. A couple of smartass comments from some peers and a bit of passive aggressive exchanges with Strider, a somewhat unexpected lengthy math assignment, and Terezi hitting Sollux with a fry basically summed up the day. After school, they hung out for awhile and then headed out to Nepeta's usual drop off spot around 4. Everyone waited patiently and informed Terezi with each passing silver or white car that it wasn't her. After twenty or so minutes, a silver minivan turned the corner a couple of blocks away.

"Is that her?"

"Yes," Kanaya quickly replied.

As she pulled to a stop, Sollux and Karkat got up. In the few moments it took for the girl with the bright blue hat to jump out, Terezi went from slightly worried to practically jumping. At the sight of the blue fabric, her grin got five times larger and she squealed out, "Nepeta!" as she quickly went in for a squeezing hug and a couple of quick kisses.

"Eek, Terezi! Sorry I was late." Terezi loosened her grip and looked at her girlfriend with a small smile. Nepeta kissed her and they both laughed. They pulled away from each other and everyone else greeted Nepeta. A shoulder touch from Sollux, a kiss on the cheek from Kanaya, and a hug to Karkat. "Hey, get off me," years of habit made his voice quieter than usual.

She laughed. "Sorry. You were gone for the last week I was here, though," she apologized.

They started walking towards Terezi's house.

"So, how's the cat going?" Terezi asked.

"He approved! We're planning on going next Friday," she sighed. "I can't wait to have a cat in the house again. Oh, um, Kanaya, I found this really nice fabric I want to show you. If I bought it, I hope I did. Anyways, I want to make it into something, maybe a sweater or shawl? It's really nice."

"You'll have to show me. I'd love to work with you more on textures you like." "Thanks. And Sollux, I have note for your brother somewhere."

"Okay, he's probably already at TZ's."

"Well, that'll make things easier." She started playing with the edge of her hat.

"Oh, Nepeta! There's this new guy at school and he's so red, it's great." Red was the easiest for Terezi to spot. It's a very bold color and could be seen fairly well even with vision problems. Everyone had kind of gotten in the habit of wearing something red so she could more easily identify them.

"Neat!"

"And him and Karkat have _history_." Terezi wiggled her eyebrows.

"What?" Nepeta was obviously curious and confused.

Karkat groaned. This was going to be hell. Sollux grinned,

"You weren't here were you? Allow me. The day was warm and sunny and us first-graders were enjoying our lunch break. Now, since this was the first grade, we were seated according to who our teacher was, meaning TZ and I were a couple of tables away from KK and Kanaya, but I believe I can retell the tale well enough."

"Sollux..." He wasn't actually going to do this.

"Over at Mrs. Wagner's table there was Karkat Vantas, to his left was his dear friend, Kanaya Maryam, and to his right sat his worst enemy, Dave Strider. No one actually remembers why these two were rivals, but they had declared their hatred of each other in kindergarten and had kept it up throughout the first grade."

"Sollux." The asshole was actually going to do this.

"Karkat and Dave were, as you might suspect, fighting. For some reason the subject of their argument was Dave's applejuice, the details are unimportant, what matters is what KK did."

"Sollux, _please_."

"In the middle of their quarrel, which had dismantled into insults only, Karkat stood up and yelled, 'At least I'm keeping my dad.'"

"Karkat!"

"I was six." 

"That is so unbelievably shitty, though."

Sollux interrupted, "Nepeta, if you'll let me finish, it gets better."

"Oh god." 

"I, of course, am Sollux Captor, so there's no way I can know whether or not this happened, but I like to imagine that in that moment, time froze as our dear friend realized what he said. Maybe, he glanced down at Dave and saw that this boy was either going to cry or punch something, possibly both. And Karkat knew he had made a terrible mistake. Dave tackled him to the ground and their fight became physical. Now, I don't know exactly what happened to Dave, but Karkat was suspended for a week, got a total of four lectures from our collective parents, was grounded for two weeks, and had a broken wrist and a black eye."

Nepeta simply covered her mouth in astonishment.

"And that, Nepeta, is the apple juice incident."

"We had to pass notes via Kankri the whole time he was grounded." Kanaya added.

"That was possibly the worst day of my life." Receiving a lecture from Ms.Izzy, over the phone, for half an hour, was not a pleasant memory in the slightest. Especially since his dad had been watching him the whole time. At least Py's lecture was short, Karkat could still remember it, 'Karkat, you're an asshole. That's really all there is to say on the matter.'

"So why is he back at Bale Lake?"

"Beats me," Sollux responded, “I thought he had gone to live with some cousin down in Texas.”

They walked into the Pyrope house and were greeted quite loudly, "Hey, how many guests are you having over for the night, sis? MT and I were hoping to take over the living room." Latula appeared in the entranceway. "Hey Nepeta." Nepeta waved and muttered a greeting.

Terezi hummed a bit before saying, “I’m pretty sure it’s just me and Nepeta tonight.”

“Awesome! There’s like soda and stuff in the kitchen, Mom is bringing groceries home with her tomorrow.”

They went ahead in Terezi's and took up various spot on the floor, bed, and chair. Terezi started chatting with Nepeta about cats as Nepeta dug through her bag. Kanaya occasionally added to the conversation and Sollux mindlessly toyed with a pen, glancing towards Karkat every so often. Karkat, well...Karkat contemplated how he felt at home with these idiots and assholes, how he loved them, how he was so glad they were permanent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if anyone was waiting on this. The chapter title sucks because I'm uncreative. This chapter is obviously filler and stylized info-dumping.


	3. This is just them arguing over movies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m going to ask Dave if he wants to sit with us.

“I’m going to ask Dave if he wants to sit with us.”

 

“No.”

 

“Oh come on, you two have been keeping this up for long enough. I like him and I’m going to see if he’ll like to sit with us tomorrow.”

 

“Terezi,” Karkat groaned. It had  been almost four weeks since Dave had moved back and as far as Karkat was concerned, things had only gotten worse. And yet it appeared Terezi and Dave were quickly becoming friends.

 

“You and Dave can’t keep this up forever, Karkat,” Kanaya chastised.

 

“I know that, but I would appreciate not having to interact with him more often than I already do.”

 

“You guys aren’t that different, you know. In fact, I think Dave might be nicer.”

 

Karkat scoffed at Terezi. “Shut up.”

 

Terezi stuck out her tongue. “Never.”

 

“Why do you want him to sit with us anyways?”

 

“Because he’s my friend, Karkat. Jeez, haven't you ever had one?”

 

Karkat was highly unamused as Sollux snorted. Karkat rolled his eyes. “Jesus, how do I stand any of you?”

 

Terezi elbowed him in the side. “Oh, you know you love us.”

 

“Why must those two topics be mutually related?”

 

Kanaya looked like she was about to respond when Terezi cut her off, “Don’t know, don’t really care. Look, I’ve given you a heads up. I’ll be asking him this afternoon and, what with all of us being so charming, there’s no way he’ll be able to refuse.”

 

“I full heartedly agree with you, Terezi,” Sollux said laughing, “Why would anyone not want to sit with us?”

 

“Did you just try to use a sarcastic comeback on her already sarcastic statement? Because I feel like that’d very sad, downright pitiful even.”

 

“Oh, shut the fuck up KK.”

 

Kanaya rolled her eyes. “It is simply incredible how mature you all are.”

 

“I know right? We could all be highly disciplined businessmen with this much maturity, hell I could be CEO of BoringCorp Interprise. Highly professional, it’d usually take one years to earn such a position.”

 

“Oh my, Terezi, you’re right. How did I not see this before? Oh, you’re going to make your whole family so proud. Nepeta won’t have to work a day of her life, she can just stay home, maybe join a country club or the like.”

 

Terezi let out a loud cackle, “Nepeta? Oh my god. I can’t breathe. Kanaya you’re killing me.”

 

“Yeah, Kanaya, we all know Karkat’s far more likely to be a housewife.”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“You already adore those shitty rom-coms, and don’t get me started on your bookshelf.”

 

“As if you have better taste than me. Hasn’t it been three months since you saw a movie that wasn’t Pacific Rim?”

 

“Are you trying to say Mamma Mia is better than Pacific Rim?”

 

“Maybe I am.”

 

“Oh would you both shut it, we all know Legally Blonde is the superior film.”

 

“Are you shitting me?”

 

“No, she’s right, it is better than Pacific Rim.”

 

“What? It doesn’t even compare.”

 

“Legally Blonde is amazing and has a far superior plot.”

 

“Thank you Karkat for pointing out the obvious.”

 

“Oh come on. We all know you only like it because of your law obsession.”

 

“Are you saying you’re love of Pacific Rim has nothing to do with the technology?”

 

“No, bu-”

 

“Than it’s awfully hypocritical of you to chastise me for enjoying a movie on a topic I enjoy, so please, if you’d ever so kindly shut your fucking trap, it’d be appreciated.”

 

You could tell your table was starting to draw some attention. People should mostly ignore it, but if Terezi got any louder… “Look, we’ll settle this after class, it’ll provide plenty of time for Legally Blonde to drag Pacific Rim to the garbage.”

 

“Wow, rude. Kanaya?”

 

“Don’t look at me. My favorite movie is Interview With The Vampire, remember?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to get up. I have a fanfic tumblr now and I'm accepting requests so if you want to check that out, it'd be awesome.

**Author's Note:**

> So I agreed to write two fics for CosmicScalemate because I need to get in the habit of writing more. Totally based off of one of one of these: http://tea-and-outer-space.tumblr.com/post/99399784683/aus 
> 
> Feel free to ask questions, either in the comments or at spaceandshitfanfic.tumblr.com.


End file.
